“No, I don’t. But it’s kind of you to say that. And you know that every time I send Captain Sally a stack like this, I write it out again so I have a copy. It takes me forever and a day, but sometimes I feel like I’m mailing these things to a hole in the ground, and I can’t stand to see it lost.”

“That Captain Sally sent you a message by the taps once, over in Tacoma.”

“That’s true, she did.” Mercy lifted the package, squeezed it, and listened to the brittle paper rustle within. “But all it said was that my reports arrived, and I should keep sending them. And…” She set the package aside. “And anyone on earth could’ve sent that message.”

“Now you’re just getting yourself all worked up for nothing.”

Mercy’s hands fluttered, as if she wasn’t sure what to do with them. She picked up a pencil stub and chewed pensively upon it. Then she removed it from her mouth and asked, with deadly seriousness, “Am I?”

Angeline shooed her worries away with a flip of her wrist. “Of course you are, baby. Your letters are getting through just fine, only it feels like years ’cause you’re mailing through a war zone. Maybe some of your messages get lost, that’s possible, sure. But no one’s stealing them on the other end. No one’s burying them in a hole.”

“Or burning them,” she murmured. “Or hiding them. Or giving them to the wrong people to read.”

“Now that’s just nonsense. What would anybody want with your notes, except a doctor wanting to treat these men?”

Mercy rose to her feet and pushed her chair back under the desk with the back of her knee. She gave her pencil stub another bite, and then came to sit beside Angeline on the edge of the low-slung bed. The lantern gave both of them a chilly glow. It wasn’t warm light, and it cut the room into peculiar shadows.

Softly, the nurse said, “Sap is a terrible thing, and the world is full of men who trade in terrible things. You said it yourself: There’s a war, Angeline. And wars feed on terrible things. The Union has plans to make this nasty powder into a weapon, and if they take too long at it, I’m sure the Confederates will try it for themselves. The notes I’m sending to help Captain Sally find a cure … they’re notes that could help make terrible things. And that’s exactly the opposite of what I want to do. But it cuts both ways. I can’t say the truth and promise who will hear it, or how they’ll use it.”

They rested in companionable quiet, save the fizzle and pop of the electric light.